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Intel Must Pay $150M for Patent Infringement
An anonymous reader writes "ExtremeTech is reporting that a U.S. district court has ruled that Intel's Itanium infringes Intergraph's intellectual property to the tune of $150 million in damages. The judge also cleared the way for Intergraph to request an injunction blocking sales of Itaniums and Itanium 2's."
Intel no doubt has a lot of patents that it regards as valuable, so it won't support a proposal to do away with patents all together. But a proposal to reduce the "landmine" effect of unknown patents might win support in the technology industry, because landmine patents are a nightmare to everyone there.
So, how do you prevent landmine patents but still keep the basic concept of a patent? Maybe the time has come for a "sweat of the brow" basis for patents. At present patents are granted on the "lightbulb moment" theory: the inventor has a flash of inspiration and the invention springs fully formed from his brow. But this leads to silly stuff like the infamous XOR patent (which patented the use of XOR for screen cursors in GUIs). However the justification for patents lies in the investment required to bring an idea to market. So maybe patents should be granted based on evidence of the hard work required to generate the invention.
What do you think?
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Of course Intel well pay, but the bigger problem is that they have poured billions into Itanium and may now have to face not being able to sell any if the second case goes through
Normal people worry me!
Still, no-one holds a patent to VLIW in it self. It must be a patent of some implementation detail that is now covered in the detail.
EPIC is imply Intel sales lingo for VLIW.
I'm not a particularly big fan of Intel. But I want 64 bit processing to take off. This only hinders that. I'm really goddamn tired of our litigous society.
Is Intergraph going to market a 64 bit chip for us? No. So why the hell do they feel the need to... bah. Nevermind. I can't go anywhere with this, it just gets me upset.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
This is EXACTLY the sort of case that the patent system was set up to support. This is a GOOD example of patents working well. Intel infringed on the work of another individual, okay they claim they didn't know about it, but how much should we believe that a corporation like that didn't just think "Hell we've got the most lawyers".
Intel get zero sympathy from me here, too many big companies have played the lawyer card and won.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I mean they used the same instruction set to input instructions and data, but by converting the x86 machine code into an internal machine code, they avoided directly implementing a x86 processor (although they did implement a translator) and thus (as a judge ruled, I recall) avoided patent infringment. Like I said, I wish I had an article to back this up.
In another matter how is it that the PIC is patentable? The article is plenty scant on technical details, but I got the impression that it was just a fancy term for pipelining, which has been around in supercomputers for 25-30 years. Does anyone out there know if PIC is some sort of new, exceptionally novell way of pipelining, or is it just another example of the patant office issuing a "you are the only one allowed to use this incredibly simple, obvious technique, that half the industry uses already."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big Intel fan, but still...
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it." -George W. Bush
When big companies get hit a few times like this corporate America will start to see the point that there's really no one who benefits from the patent system the way it is right now. But doing away with patents altogether won't find any takers, as someone's pointed out. Still, this is a good time to start a serious campaign for patent reform. Some checks and balances should be built in, along these lines:
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Anyone about to release a product submits a description of it to the PTO; patent holders who think the product infringes on their patent has a month or 2 to file a complaint and prove the infringement. The onus of looking out for possible infringement lies enrtirely with the patent holder.
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A patent holder can not be allowed to sit on a patent indefinitely and prevent others from using the invention. To this end, a patent holder must produce proof that s/he is working to commercially exploit his patent if s/he wants to hold on to it for more than (say) 10 years.
I'm not sure if these are practical to implement the way I've put them, but you get the idea.Of course I don't think anything of this sort will happen in the near future, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight.
IP patents lead to all sorts of problems. How different is different enough not to be sued? If I independently develop a similar, say, algorithm why shouldn't I be allowed to use it?
If I discover an optimal algorithm but then another makes the same discovery and patents it, how is this fair?
How can you tell the difference between an invention and a discovery? What if I use a different means to achieve the same specific end?
Sometimes when I think about pantent law, I say to myself, "Me, why does head feel like it being applied to sufficiently large cheese grater and vigorously shaken?" To which I answer, "You mindless grammar fiend! More brain washing for you!" and silenty look at the pretty blue colors at microsoft.com
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
I agree, READ THE INFO FIRST !
I hate to rant about the slashdot sheep/lemmings thing again but most of the posts so far drone on about something like "this should shake up the patent system", "patents should be more limited" and "I normally dont like intel but this is sad", etc... (the apologist ones are my all time favorite)
WAKE UP!!!!
Intergraph was absolutly kicking ass at one point, just like any other underdog you guys would usually champion, and Intel almost completely stomped them into the ground. It is more tham fair of them to do this and they have every right.
Go read the history and at least decide for yourself. Please!!!
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btw, the pre-emptive apology / please dont mod me down ones are my all time favorite, ala "I normally dont like intel but..." or "I dont normally like microsoft but..."
Agreed.
Worse then the lawsuit is that today's investors are insane and expect corporate growth for each consecutive quarter wether a lawsuit is pressed or not. This means Intel will just add the 150 million dollar cost to all the cpu's sold. This is bad news for you and me. I wonder how much we actually pay for redicolous patents in every day life?
I can imagine a $10 dollar cpu tax for every intel cpu sold for now on. Then integraph will sue Amd and they too will cave in and bring the cost to the consumers to satisfy the shareholders.
I smell a rambus going on. Rambus makes money off of each ddr sold unless they are bought from samsung or some European company that I forget the name. They have a patent on ddram. Its silly and outrageous.
http://saveie6.com/
The thing goes like this. To produce an innovation, i must spend money. And then i can get the money by orverchaging a bit when i sell the product, to compensate the R&D costs.
Now, if i want to overcharge a bit, but company B has this technology withoout any R&D, the wouldn't care to sell it cheaper (production cost + very small margin). So I can't sell my product unless i charge the same.
So I don't do that R&D and so there is no innovation. But as we already know, the patent system is doomed, because it assumes there is no cost for patent research, it asumes it's costs the same to research 1 patent, 100, 1000000, infinite number.
So at the end, it stiffles promotes innovation, but depromotes implementations/applications, and breaks the techonolical advance foundations which is built layer upon layer.
Unless you can trade cards (patent portfolio), which means only large corporations can access the technology.
In the end, you can never be sure it does more harm than good, but companies are mostly cnfortable with it, because at the end, it's a way to split the cake ($$$).
And that's what companies are about. But as it beign the perfect tool to promote innovations, i very much doubt it.
unfinished: (adj.)
might be to shorten patent life.
Or create a special patent for software, that only last 4 years or so. And have a special technical committee for that type of patent.
It not unprecedented, there are lots of special types of patents already, such as biological ones, with different rules from normal patents.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I just unloaded my Intergraph stock a month ago.
Oh well. I used to work in Intergraph's advanced processor division a couple a years ago. There was this designer that laid out the clipper cache for the C3/C4 processor. Well he got grabbed up by intel a few years later. Word had it, he designed part of the pent/intn cache.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Pending the final outcome of this patent infringement case, I wonder how this will affect AMD and its *hammer chip uptake in the higher-end 64-bit x86 architecture market. Should Intel lose the case, does any of this have the potential to help AMD increase market share in the 64-bit arena, whether by virtue of being a pure, innovative technology (as opposed to being ripped from someone else), or by having an advantage of already being on the market while Intel redesigns their chips? Or by having cheaper chips (by not having to tack a litigation 'tax' onto the price of processors)?
Does any of this even matter? Will AMD still be the Cinderella in the corporate eyes when this is over?
Have EVDO, will travel.
While the 150M$ isn't significant, the injunction of Itaniums may have the undesired, or desired, or who the heck knows, affect of forcing Yamhill.
I'd normally say it's unlikely that Intergraph would push for the injuction, prefering a slice of the pie, they already would have 150M$...
Theft of technology isn't a new thing, for those who have followed the fortunes of the Alpha processors. Intel was charged with 12 counts of patent infringement, and effectively working in bad faith from the moment they entered a technology sharing agreement with DEC to the moment it broke of and they kept many of the ideas. DEC bided their time, built their case, for two years and then lowered the boom. Intel was lucky to get off as lightly, out of court, as they did, because DEC threatened to block all sales of Pentium processors. Intel ended up paying the long price for the FAB, which they shut down eventually. Yet, all the cash Intel handed DEC didn't save them. As you probably know, DEC was bought by Compaq and now Compaq is part of HP.
Maybe more appropriate to suggest Sun and some people at HP (though not those working on McKinley) are jumping up and down with joy. Certainly for anyone who (still) assumed the Itaniums as a threat this holds some interest, but I doubt it really would bring and end to the Itanium line.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'd say that Intel will have to pay, because if Intergraph stops the Itanium series of processors, it will mean an even bigger loss of money
If anything it'll probably *save* them money. Itanic has been a huge flop so far.
Intel already feels the pain, and has is one of the big supporters of a more sane and relaxed IP approach. They have submitted a number of briefs (including one supporting Eldred, IIRC) where they basically say "we are prolific IP holders, yet we often feel the pain of overbroad IP policy and on balance we support X's position to rationalize IP law."
It is very hypocritical for people here to cheer. We should support fair IP for everyone, large or small.
Intel and Intergraph have already worked out deals to licence the technology. There is a seperate negotiated price for the various continencies:
Intel loosed case and appeal = $X
Intel looses case but wins appear =$Y (YX)
Intel wins case = $Z (ZYX)
$100 mil is chump change. It does not do intergraph any dood to kill Itanium.
The problem is you can patent something you can not build. Right now big tech companies are patenting quantum and organic science stuff which they are no where close to building, but are mainly doing it for insurance.
What really sucks is a lot of the patents are just tech versions of the works of academia and scientists. It's like QM predicts the concept of superposition, so I'll patent the use of superpositions for computers. Very similar to the patents for doing auctions "on a computer".
I think you should not be able to patent it unless the technology to make it useful already exists. There should also be a 6 month window, in which if somebody else submit's a similar patent, both patents holders have equal licensing rights. This will minimize the patents for using old/ancient concepts on new technology.
Funny you should say that- Intel server product sales are up 9% this quarter. I wouldnt call that a flop.
d _t op_6
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961742.html?tag=f
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Not to mention how much was done by the government with your tax dollars. I once knew a guy who had an exciting job testing glues for the government. I asked what a good glue was and he said he couldn't tell me. His findings were to be used only so the government could approach the best manufacturers for government contracts. Divulging outside of this context would put the government in the position of certifying who was producing good stuff and who was producing crap, thereby giving an "unfair advantage" to the good producers and driving the rest out of business. "Interfering with free trade" and all that shit.